Where the Tides of Fortune Take Us No Man Can Know

"By The pits's Light"
Written by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Thomas Wolfe
Directed away Les Landau
Mollify 5, Episode 15
Production episode 40510-513
Original air go out: February 17, 1997
Stardate: 50564.2

Station log: We bugger off a précis of "In Purgatory's Shadow," then see Kira take in command of the Defiant. On with the remaining deuce runabouts and Dukat's Bird-of-Prey, they get ready to defend the station. On the other hand the Jaish-i-Mohammed'Hadar pass changes course away from the station and toward Cardassia. Dukat breaks formation and goes after the flutter—just, equally he reveals in a communication with Kira, not to snipe information technology, but to join information technology. Dukat reveals that he's been engaged in secret negotiations with the Dominion for months, and instantly Cardassia is part of the Dominion.

In the prisoner of war camp, Bashir and Martok show Worf and Garak where the life support that Tain modified is. It's accessible via a wall panel next to Tain's bunk, a precise tight place. Worf's plan is to modify Tain's juryrigged sender to send a signalise to the two-seater and beam them to that. But Garak's the only one with the expertise to do the work.

The prisoners are then summoned before Deyos, the Vorta in charge of the camp. He frees whol the Cardassians, and congratulates them on their new status American Samoa District citizens. However, Garak is not unrestrained to go, As Dukat wants him to stay right where he is.

Happening Cardassia, the present propaganda screens are showing Dukat, explaining how unbelievably awesome things will be now that Cardassia is part of the Dominion. He also pledges that within a week, no more Klingon will be left alive and no Maquis colony wish be left over intact within Cardassian territory.

Happening the station, the bad word continues to pile up: the sabotage of the emitters created the opposite effect intended, and the wormhole term is actually more stable now, to the point where even explosives wouldn't cachet it off. The changeling posing as Bashir and so makes the ballsy suggestion that they suffice more stoc screenings, since there's obviously a shapeshifter on board. (Ahem.)

While Garak whole caboodle on adjusting Tain's sender in the selfsame tight crawlspace, Worf is brought into the ring. Ikat'ika explains that this is a training employment, and urges his soldiers to canvass and learn for when they face Klingons in battle. Worf is hoping to face Ikat'ika himself, but Martok says that will come sooner or later. Martok besides reveals that Ikat'ika's the one who cost Martok his left eye.

Worf fights a Jem'Hadar, their youngest and least experienced. Worf makes short run of him. Meantime, Garak is obviously non doing well—his pulse is racing, his blood pressure sensation is through the roof—and Bashir insists atomic number 2 take a fifteen-bit separate every hour.

Kira has a fondness-to-affection with Ziyal, who doesn't know what to make of her father's latest actions, and clean wants Garak to come back. Kira wisely reminds her that the only elbow room to judge someone is not past what they think or what they say, only what they do.

A big-ass Klingon fleet arrives from Cardassia, having been chased out aside the Army of Muhammad'Hadar. Gowron himself is leading the dart, and requests medical assistance. Sisko convinces Gowron to rejuvenate the alliance with the Federation. A Starfleet task force is nut road, and Gowron's fleet can be added to that, stagnant united against the Dominion.

The Bashir changeling—who was actually helping Sisko promote Gowron to re-ally with the Federation—starts sabotaging the Yukon.

Worf wins his fifth straight fit. He also has few broken ribs, and Bashir urges him to stop war-ridden, but atomic number 2 South Korean won't. He power buy the farm, but atomic number 2 North Korean won't yield. Meanwhile, Garak starts rebuking the lights when they quiver, and past has to convince himself not to give in to his claustrophobia, at which atomic number 2's non exclusively productive. He starts banging on the wall in a full-blown scare, forcing Bashir to yank him out.

On the station, many of Gowron's swift shows up. Kira reports that Odo discovered a consumption of an industrial replicator by the fifth columnist, who got away and wiped the memory of the replicator, sol they don't know what was fabricated. Sisko orders bivalent shifts for altogether security department staff, and suggests request Gowron for additional staff office.

Dukat then contacts Sisko, telling him to convince the Federation to follow Cardassia's path to joining the Dominion. He also wants the station stake. Out of condition for the times Sisko regenerate Dukat's life, atomic number 2's willing to give Sisko a chance to surrender the station. Sisko, to no peerless's surprise, does not go for this, and tells Dukat to bring it happening.

Worf wins two much victories against Jem'Hadar opponents, even with his busted ribs. Martok is so impressed with Worf's valor that he promises to throw a Song self-possessed in Worf's respect. He'll even make a point there's a poetise astir Bashir, the therapist to who bound the warrior's wounds. Garak then gets in the lead and says that a verse about the Cardassian WHO panic-struck in the face of danger would right ruin Martok's song. So atomic number 2 goes back in.

In conclusion, Worf gets to human face Ikat'ika, who deems Worf a worthy opposer. For his part, Deyos is disorganized. After all Worf's been done, he still wants to fight. Ikat'ika points out that He himself is the same, but the Jaish-i-Mohammed'Hadar are bred for armed combat—whol that motivates Worf is a "noncivilized sense of honor." Ikat'ika says, "Victory is life," Worf says, "Now is a arrivederci to die," and then they fight. As they struggle, Garak keeps working, muttering that he wishes Tain were still alive—mostly so helium could be in there instead of Garak. As he works, three Jem'Hadar enter the barracks and demand that Garak equal produced, as He's to be put to last (probably on Dukat's order). They find the tool they've been victimization to pry the panel open, and kill ane of the Romulan prisoners to get Bashir to mouth. Then one of the Jem'Hadar finds the wall panel. The Breen captive manages to grab a Jem'Hadar pistol and kill two Jaish-i-Mohammed'Hadar earlier the Breen is also killed. Bashir uses the creature to stab the last Jem'Hadar.

Worf is wholly acquiring his ass kicked by Ikat'ika, pertinent where even Martok is telling him to stay down. But Worf keeps acquiring rearwards up, keeps fighting, and in real time Ikat'ika is as wel telling him to occlusion fighting. Worf refuses to fruit—so Ikat'ika yields instead. "I cannot defeat this Klingon. Every last I can do is kill him, and that no more holds my pursuit." Deyos then orders both Worf and Ikat'ika killed, but that's when Garak finishes his influence, beaming Worf, Bashir, Martok, the Romulan, and himself to the runabout.

Gowron's fleet is in place, a Starfleet task power led away Admiral Gilhouly has arrived, and Kira takes out the Defiant. Also encouraging are the two unexpended runabouts—merely the Yukon's work party has been killed by the Bashir changeling, who is now piloting it.

A whole mess of Romulan ships decloak, requesting permission to join the fleet even as sensors detect a fleet of Jaish-i-Mohammed'Hadar and Cardassian ships are tenner minutes away. But there's no optical sign of the swift: lots of warp signatures, but No targeting locks.

Then O'Brien gets a claim from the GQ from Bashir. Sisko in real time queries the computer for Bashir's location. He's told that Bashir ISN't on the station, and was last known to get on the Yukon. Sisko orders Kira to hold up after the Yukon, which is headed straight for the Bajoran sun. Dax detects a huge-ass explosive on the runabout, which would suit the sun to go nova, destroying Bajor, DS9, and all three fleets, thus disabling the Dominion's enemies without a shot being fired.

The Defiant warps to the Sun and gets the Yukon in a tractor beam, pulling it away from the insolate so it explodes harmlessly. The warp signatures are now expended—IT was a fake, the Dominion/Cardassian flit never was there. It was all a lure to band them up for the sun going nail.

The runabout comes dwelling house. Garak and Ziyal are reunited, as are Dax and Worf. O'Brien is appalled to realize he's been pendant out with a half-wit for a calendar month (though He says the signs were all there—for starters, the changeling was a lot easier to get along with). And Gowron agrees to leave a garrison of Klingon ships at the station, with Martok in charge—the latter at Sisko's request, based happening Worf's passport.

Dukat contacts Sisko to congratulate him happening thwarting the Dominion's plot. Sisko tartly reminds him that his daughter would've been one of the casualties if the program had succeeded, but as furthermost equally Dukat's troubled, she's no longer his girl. Atomic number 2 also promises that Cardassia wish exist strong once again, and this isn't the last clip they'll clash.

Can't we just reverse the polarity? The Bashir retard goes for overkill, creating an detonative that includes trilithium (established American Samoa an unstable explosive in TNG's "Spaceship Mine"), protomatter (established as unstable and dangerous in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), and tekasite (that's a hot one).

The Sisko is of Bajor: When Sisko gets a call from Bashir in the Gamma Quadrant, and so determines that Bashir International Relations and Security Network't on the station and was last seen happening a runabout he wasn't appointed to, he doesn't hesitate—there isn't time to—and immediately tells Kira to get the Yukon and destroy information technology.

Don't ask my opinion next time: Fittingly, it's Kira to whom Dukat reveals his sooper-seekrit architectural plan to have Cardassia join the Dominion. He ends the communiqué by saying that him and Kira on the same side ne'er was really rectify, which is one of those rare instances where Dukat is perfectly right. Kira after tells Ziyal that if her don said that rain was wet, she wouldn't believe him.

There is no honor in being pummeled: Worf makes high for ten years of getting his ass kicked by winning fight aft fight after scrap, to the point where straight-grained the Jem'Hadar Beginning thinks he's a badass. What I especially like is that he does feel the effects—when Martok waxes rhapsodic about how even the heroes of legend couldn't have endured what he did, Worf painfully adds that heroes of caption probably didn't ache so much—merely gets past them. He International Relations and Security Network't being a steel-long-jawed stoic, but atomic number 2's being faithful his nature. Helium's a warrior, and he's not going to let anyone get the better of him, no substance how a great deal it hurts.

Rules of Acquisition: Quark laments what helium sees as a likely Dominion takeover of the station, concerned that neither the Jem'Hadar nor the Founders eat out, drink, operating theatre have sex, which doesn't say much for his financial future. Ziyal cheers him up by reminding him that the Vorta could well be piggy alcoholic sex maniacs. (Plus, of course, the Cardassians are now part of the Rule, and Quark knows full well how much they like to eat, drink, and feature excite, so what's he troubled about?)

For Cardassia! In his propaganda speech, Dukat refers to Cardassia and the Dominion existence "equal partners," a statement that sounds—and, all over the next two-and-a-half eld will prove to actually be—optimistic, naïve, and whole wrong. (At extraordinary point, somebody plausibly should have showed him the dictionary definition of the give voice "dominion.")

Plain, simple: Garak comments that the space he's workings in would make for a dandy interrogation bedchamber: tight quarters, no air, bad lighting, random exciting shocks—it's perfect. His claustrophobia is almost overwhelming, but he manages to complete his work and beam everyone to the runabout.

Tough bantam ship: Kira risks having the Defiant cristal to warping inside a hotshot organisation to get to the Yukon in fourth dimension to stop the changeling's sabotage of Bajor's sun.

Victory is life: The fights in the gang are meant to be training exercises for the Army of Muhammad'Hadar. Ikat'ika understands and appreciates Worf's warrior spirit. Deyos, not so much—he's baffled Eastern Samoa to why Worf keeps fighting against the odds, and as to why Ikat'ika doesn't just finish him off. The disgust in the Vorta's interpreter when He orders Ikat'ika and Worf both to comprise killed is palpable.

Keep your ears open: "Think of it. Fivesome age ago, nobody had ever heard of Bajor or Deep Space 9 and immediately every last our hopes rest here. Where the tides of circumstances take United States of America, no man can be intimate."

"They'Re untrusty, those tides."

Gowron and Sisko, together again first.

Welcome aboard: Back from "In Purgatory's Shadow" are Marc Alaimo (Dukat), Cathy DeBuono (Breen captive), J.G. Hertzler (Martok), James Horan (Ikat'ika), Andrew J. Robert Robinson (Garak), Melanie Smith (Ziyal), and Carrie Stauber (Romulan captive). We've also got Robert O'Reilly regressive as Gowron, Barry Wiggins and Don River Fischer as the Jem'Hadar guards, and Ray of light Buktenica being delightfully smarmy equally Deyos.

Frivolous matters: Therein episode, Cardassia becomes split of the District, giving that last mentioned a beachhead in the Explorative Quadrant, and the Klingons reenter the Khitomer Accords, restoring the Federation-Klingon alliance and end the Federation-Klingon fight.

One of Sisko's visions in "Rapture" was of a huge swarm of locusts pausing over Bajor before proceeding to Cardassia, which foretold the actions of the Jem'Hadar flit in the teaser.

The afraid Garak's having to work on in an enclosed space was divine by The Great Escape, in which Charles Bronson's "Burrow King" has to get along something standardized. To ADHD insult to trauma, Andrew J. Robinson was distress from the flu connected the solar day of filming and has a touch of claustrophobia himself. Robinson later said, "I didn't take up to act. I was there."

The tremendous convenience of the runabout Worf and Garak took to the GQ being rectify there in orbit will be addressed in "Inquisition."

Dukat reminds Sisko of the times the last mentioned saved the former's life—to which Sisko's disgusted response is, "Don't remind me." Those occasions include "The Maquis, Part Deuce," "Civil Defense," and "The Way of the Warrior," and Sisko also greatly assisted Dukat in "Resistive."

Una McCormack's novel The Never-Ending Sacrifice shows how the Cardassian multitude responded to suddenly becoming part of the Dominion undermentioned this episode. (That novel also helped put on up the Garak-Ziyal relationship by showing how much of an outcast Ziyal was on Cardassia between "Indiscretion" and "Return to Decorate.")

There's a peculiar obsession in fandom, and also in the link fiction, insisting that the Klingon Empire and parts of the Federation are in the Beta Right angle, one that was codified by the (generally very fantabulous and wonderful) Whiz Charts map book away Geoffrey Mandel. It's founded solely on one open-to-interpretation occupation in Star Trek VI, and your humble rewatcher has ne'er bought it, mainly because the phrase "Beta Quadrant" is never spoken on DS9, a show for which quadrant-settled political entities are tolerant of consequential. In particular, Gowron's line in this episode is about how the Territorial dominion absorbing Cardassia has ramifications "for the entire Of import Quadrant." If the Klingon Empire was entirely in the Beta Quadrant, as so many give birth postulated, so Gowron's cable would necessarily have to be different. The fact that he only mentions the AQ is the best evidence that the Klingons are also lonesome in the AQ.

Walk with the Prophets: "Armageddon will have to wait for some other twenty-four hours." Even if the rest of the episode was terrible—and it International Relations and Security Network't—IT would be Charles Frederick Worth it for the magnificent double-fakeout of the teaser. What's especially splendid is that they didn't just pull it out of their asses—the Jem'Hadar swift turning toward Cardassia was sown back in "Exaltation" in Sisko's visions, let alone Dukat's cagey comments in the old episode. We're soh confident that it's an invasion that an choice never even occurs.

And that alternative is so more than worse for everyone. Well, except the Dominion, in any case. I'm sure the Cardassians think it's better, too, in much the same manner the poor and starving citizens of the Weimar Republic of the 1920s thought that guy with the Charlie Chaplin mustache had some good points and was worth acquiring behind.

But having the Dominion gain territory in the Alpha Quadrant just makes everything worse (with Dukat being in charge of Cardassia the cherry connected top). This shit just got real.

What's even more entertaining is that there has nevertheless to be a large military action taken past the Jem'Hadar. The Obsidian Order and the Tal Shiar were annihilated away a project of Tain's, although the Lovok moron facilitated it to make a point they were taken KO'd in the nebula. The Federation-Klingon alliance being sundered was the result of the Klingon invasion of Cardassia, again expedited by the Martok idiot, but still due to someone else's actions. Martial legal philosophy on Globe was realised by the detonating of a mateless explosive in a league, and ongoing conflicts among the Cardassians, Federation, Maquisard, and Klingons have weakened everyone—and no of it involved a single overt military involvement by the Dominion (with the exception of the destruction of the New Bajor colony in "The Jem'Hadar").

Even the battle in this episode is entirely one of brinksmanship and covert Ops: the Rule only pretends to send a Brobdingnagian-ass intrusion fleet to DS9 while the Bashir changeling is going to shove along up the sun. Fake with the big thing, really do damage with the small thing—it's been the Dominion's MO from jump, and it makes them a far much effective and dangerous opponent.

Which makes the means they run their prison camp whol the more maddening. They can impersonate a talented restore well enough to dupe all his closest friends (not to mention, y'know, his patients), they can fake an invasion fleet, simply it never occurred to them to put surveillance equipment in their cells? Seriously? What sort of imbeciles don't have a security television camera in a friggin jail cell? This is something that we wealthy person at present in 21st century Earth, and which Odo has on DS9, thus why does the super-advanced Dominion not have this incredibly basic technology? And even if you accept that they put on't have primary surveillance, wherefore did they just lead the runabout sitting almost the prison? For that matter, how'd the separate runabout get out of Dominion territory unmolested?

It's maddening because the Dominion generally is miles ahead of our heroes, but in enjoin for the prison-encampment part of the plot to piece of work, they have to be spectacularly stupid.

Which is regrettable because once you get past tense that particular idiocy, the prison stuff is superb. Watching Worf button himself is compelling viewing. Yes, it's a training exercise for the Jem'Hadar, but it's one for Worf, excessively, as he's learning Sir Thomas More about how the Jem'Hadar fight just as they'ray learning about Klingons.

But the main point is that he North Korean won't bear. At that place's a locution in Asian warriorlike arts circles, a Japanese idiom, "nana kirobi ya oki," which translates to "7 multiplication fall blue, eight multiplication swot up."* Worf embodies that purport in this episode, refusing to yield even though all bone in his body (the few that are still intact) is crying out for him to stop, because to do so would be to truly lose. And Worf has ever been the philosophical doctrine Klingon, soh he has to push it even farther. Martok is telling him that abide by's served and to just stay the hell consume, his own opponent is telling him to stay down, but helium clambers to his feet anyhow. It's a thrilling exercise of a virile intent refusing to cost broken and some very nicely understated exercise by Michael Dorn. He doesn't hope bluster here, He just keeps acquiring support up.

* I actually appropriated it equally a Klingon saying for The Klingon Art of War, only I made it "eight times fall knock down, nine times fancy up," because Klingons must do everything larger.

Worf ISN't the only cardinal whose spirit rises to the social occasion, either. We find oneself out that Garak is claustrophobic, a revelation that kinda comes out of left over field of operations, but in that location hasn't been anything prior to this that contradicts it. (And even i throwaway line of dialogue about the Defiant cabins being afraid in "Second Skin" to back IT improving.) Andrew J. Robinson is stellar here, selling Garak's breakdown beautifully. What's especially impressive is that this is the start time Garak has been in any way heroic—but he ne'er does violate his credo of self-preservation uber alles. His main goal is to get himself impossible of the POW camp—especially once it's disclosed that he's had a death sentence passed against him. Only in this case, he's also serving a higher purpose, and helium's not doing it under objection for a change.

Additionally to everything else, we end the Klingon conflict (which is fine, I like the Klingons better every bit allies) and get ourselves other untested compelling recurring character in J.G. Hertzler's Martok, who volition continue to be a strange, regal mien on the series going forward, thanks to the supreme gravitas and energy that Hertzler brings to the role. The position quo has been set afire once more, which is delightful, and sets sprouted so many more possibilities. The Rule fleet going to Cardassia wasn't the single thing Sisko predicted in "Rapture," after every, he also predicted a "coming war with the Dominion," and IT rightful got a whole heckuva lot nearer.

Warp factor in rating: 9

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Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the guests, alongside Nelly Reifler, Tor.com's ain Emmet Asher-Perrin, and legion Ryan Britt, for "Lust For Genre: Standard SF&adenylic acid;F Readings form Our Favored Humans," a week from tonight, the 27th of June, at Singularity & Co. in Brooklyn at 7.30pm. We'll each make up reading, not our own bring, merely the work of combined of our deary classic authors. Descend on aside!

citation

Where the Tides of Fortune Take Us No Man Can Know

Source: https://www.tor.com/2014/06/20/star-trek-deep-space-nine-rewatch-by-infernos-light/